In the early twenty first, we see efforts to restore nature, literally undoing some of the changes humans have wrought. In addition to re-wilding, restoring species, and restoring land ownership to indigenous people, dams are being removed from waterways.
In a lot of cases, this really amounts to just making crumbling infrastructure safe before it collapses catastrophically. But some projects are quite ambitious, aiming to restore the ecology of a significant river.
One of the largest such projects is on the Klamath River in US. In 2023-2024, four dams will be removed from the lower reaches of the Klamath, restoring free flow to hundreds of kilometers of river [2]. (Note that the river system will still have seven dams.)
Removing dams will also involve rebuilding roads and other infrastructure. Overall, this is an expensive project, in the same ballpark as building dams in the first place. Sigh.
A tiny sliver of the funding will go to scientific measurements of the river system, to document the results and inform further decision making (e.g., [1]). The teams are rushing to gather as much “before” data as possible, and then will measure the new, “free”, river.
The bad news is that most of the funding is going to infrastructure. Not much is going to science, and there isn’t really a plan for sustained monitoring.
The good news is, that unlike when the dams were built, we have a pretty good idea of how to do these studies, and we have the ability to create computer models to understand the effects of alternative interventions.
Tara Lohan points out the important role that the Yurok tribe (who have been busy on other fronts as well), who have agitated for the dam removal for a long time. The tribe is hoping to restore the health of salmon and other fish in the river, which are an important food source. The Yurok and others are collaborating with academic researchers, incorporating traditional knowledge of the ecosystem with the new measurements.
These collaborations also aim to keep the indigenous people in the decision-making process for future interventions. (We’ll see about that—the US has never yet kept any promise to Indians.)
In any case, the dams are coming down, and the Klamath is going to flow free. It will be intersting to see what happens. What will the new version of the river look like? Will there be more or fewer floods? Will the salmon return, as hoped?
We shall stay tuned.
- California Water Science Center, Klamath Dam Removal Studies Active, in USGS – California Water Science Center, November 3, 2022. https://www.usgs.gov/centers/california-water-science-center/science/klamath-dam-removal-studies
- Tara Lohan, Klamath Countdown: Researchers Hustle Before Largest Dam-Removal Project Begins, in Resilience, February 14, 2023. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-02-14/klamath-countdown-researchers-hustle-before-largest-dam-removal-project-begins
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